The battle cry of the heavenly host as they expelled Satan was, "Who is like unto God" which is the meaning of the word Michael. The leader of the heavenly host that cast Lucifer and his followers into hell was Saint Michael the Archangel.

Thursday, December 03, 2009

Sometimes we find ourselves wondering when God will answer our prayers and when he doesn't answer them in the time that we ask or other times when he doesn't answer them the way that we think, our first thought is that God is ignoring us, not answering our prayer. However, there are other times in our life when we pray and God opens a door and then lifts the veil and allows us to look into our past and see the path that he chose and the way that he answered our prayer. Today was one of those days for me. God lifted the veil and allowed me to see how he had lined things up perfectly in answer to my prayer.

Last April I found myself looking madly for a job that offered health benefits, I applied everywhere and sent out around 5 resumes a week with no answer, this had been going on for several months. Then one day I happened to see an advertisement for a commission only job working the phones in a local HVAC business. I immediately submitted my resume and promptly received an answer inviting me in for an interview. I went and really got excited about the job and the people whom I was going to be working for. A few days later I was hired on and began to work in a whole new world, one built in an industry that I was unfamiliar with and a commission only based income that I was not used to being paid on. Days turned into weeks and soon after much hard work I was promoted to the Marketing and Inside Sales Manager. I loved my job the people I worked for. It was awesome.

About that same time I decided to start looking for a spiritual director and soon was recommended to contact Fr. Jack Fullen from Holy Trinity Parish in Bristow. I tried to meet with him twice and things just didn't seem to work out, he was busy, I was busy.. we missed appointments. Finally he and I set a date and I sat down with him and we had a great talk. I knew immediately that I was dealing with a very holy man and I listened to everything that he said and was determined to have bi-weekly sessions with him. Before leaving that session, Fr. Jack asked me with my PC skills if I would be interested in helping the House of Mercy in Manassas with some computer related work. I thought it would be a great idea to volunteer and help those people who are in need of assistance and prayer. A few nights later Fr. Jack contacted me and asked me to meet him at Holy Trinity to meet with the founder of the House of Mercy and discuss website design, ect.

There I met Kellie Ross, an amazing woman who has dedicated her life to The House of Mercy and we talked about different options concerning the website, social networking, web 2.0, ect. Kellie then mentioned that she would be interested in me working with their charity, however I felt at the time just starting out at my current job that I had a duty and obligation to fulfill my position there and I told her that I would be happy to volunteer my time and services whenever they needed it. As life goes, things quickly became extremely busy for me and not only did I not go to anymore spiritual direction with Father, I didn't really volunteer any time with Kellie. My thoughts over the remaining months kept on going back to the House of Mercy and the great work they do there.

At my current job I found myself getting so overwhelmed with all the things I was involved in, that I began to burn the candle at both end and soon I was just completely burnt out. I stretched myself to thin trying to pull off to many things at one time and it was then that my marketing job began to sink. Things just weren't panning out, no matter how hard I tried to paddle, it seemed that I was constantly being pushed downstream. Last week I felt particularly worn out and began to go to church on a daily basis praying for an answer, that God would help boost my marketing and help create more sells for my company. Sadly a few days later I was pulled into my managers office and we both discussed the tragic slump in marketing and my boss decided to pull me out of marketing and have me focus only on the inside sales. I was sad and depressed to say the least. I felt that I put 110% into this job and now it was being taken away from me. I thought immediately "God must have a plan"!

On Tuesday December 1st during my lunch break deep in prayer at Church I felt inspired to contact Kellie again and offer my services in the volunteer capacity. After a few hours of searching, I dug up her number from last July and gave her a call. The conversation was awesome and I asked if I could volunteer some of my time, I then felt inspired to ask if she was still looking to fill the webmaster/marketing position and we spoke about that for a few minutes. She invited me to come up today (Thursday) and discuss what she needs completed with the site and her goals for her Charity over the next few months to a year. Kellie offered me a position with The House of Mercy as the Director of Communications and I accepted and will be starting in my new position near the end of December. As I left there I felt completely at peace. I went home rejoicing that God had heard my prayer and had answered it so quickly. It was then that I realized that he had planned this out from the very beginning.

From last year when I couldn't find a job to save my life, to the day that I started at One Hour, then I got promoted, I learned important marketing and management skills, I couldn't have gotten where I am today if it wasn't for the experience and knowledge that I learned as the Marketing Manager. Also since I was full time God made sure that I was put on health insurance and covered so when I went to the doctors and got medicine I wasn't charged an arm and a leg. During all this time, I was learning to have a deeper faith with Christ through the direction of Fr. Jack who pointed me to some very good books, and then right when one job was ending God set me up with another one that will bring me closer to my goal, which is to enter the seminary and help the poorest of the poor. While I am sad to leave my job and I'll miss the people I work with, I know in my heart that everything will be fine and work out, because in the end, God is in control.

Today the Veil was lifted and as you can see.. God had a plan, was in control of this plan, and he let me in on a little secret... we must alway say: